


What Doesn't Kill You

by adjectivebear (HealerAriel)



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Kink Meme, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-06
Updated: 2013-09-06
Packaged: 2017-12-25 20:28:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/957289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HealerAriel/pseuds/adjectivebear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which instead of killing Eleanor when he sacks the castle, Howe takes her prisoner as a whore for his army.</p><p> </p><p>Written for the Kink Meme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Doesn't Kill You

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another attempt to shake of my current streak of writer's block. 
> 
> I didn't use archive warnings because the non-con and violence aren't graphic, but turn back now if you think you may be triggered regardless.

 

 

_Eleanor breathed a sigh of relief as her daughter—her stubborn, loyal, but ultimately obedient daughter—disappeared fully into the shadows of the servants' exit, and quickly sealed the passageway behind her._

_As the din of battle grew ever closer, however, her relief quickly gave way to anxiety. Where would her daughter go? Where_  could _she go? Rendon Howe was many things, but he had never been stupid, and he would not have launched this assault unless he'd known he could get away with it. He had supporters, and any one of them could be the very friends to whom Elissa thought to run._

_“She'll be fine, love. She's a clever girl. She'll find Fergus. They'll keep each other safe.”_

_Eleanor's heart clenched painfully. Her husband lay dying in a pool of his own blood and still his first thought was to comfort_  her. _She knelt beside him and embraced him as best she could without exacerbating his wounds—not, she thought miserably, that it mattered much at this point._

_“I want so badly to believe it, Bryce,” she said, not entirely succeeding at fighting back a sob. “Maker's breath, she's only seventeen years old!”_

_“We were already fighting the Orlesians at that age.” He smiled, a weak, weary thing that made fresh tears spring to her eyes. “Do you remember our first battle?”_

_Eleanor let out a watery laugh. “I still don't think hiding in the bushes by the lake and throwing rotten apples at naked chevaliers constitutes a battle, darling.”_

_“And_  I  _shall always count it as a decisive victory for the rebel army.”_  

_The rapid approach of armored boots in the hall chased away the fond memory. Icy dread gnawing at her insides, Eleanor kissed her husband's bloodied lips—steadfastly refusing to think of it as the last time she would ever do so—and stood, drawing her sword just as Howe's men burst through the door._

_Time itself seemed to stop as she fought them. It could have been hours, minutes, or mere seconds. There could have been a handful of soldiers or dozens. In the end, all she knew was that no matter how many she killed, there were still more to take their place. Strong men, half her age; it came as no surprise when they finally overpowered her, seized her blade, and wrestled her to her knees._

_Howe—the snake—only stepped into the room once she'd been subdued._

_“Fight me yourself, you coward!” she snarled, struggling against the soldiers' hold. “Or must these_  boys  _do all your work for you?”_  

 _Howe smiled an ugly, mocking little smile. “Ah, that charming Cousland bravado. I'd say I'll miss it, but—” he nodded to the soldier nearest Bryce, who plunged his sword into the Teyrn's heart before Eleanor even had a chance to scream “—it really has become_  so _tedious."_  

 _Feeling as though her own heart had been cleaved in two, Eleanor glared up at Howe. “You can kill us, you traitorous bastard, but you will_  never _win.”_  

 _Howe sighed and gave her a patronizing look. “Eleanor, my dear, you seem to be confused. It's not your fault, of course; this is all happening quite suddenly and I suppose it's been a rather nasty shock for you.” He took her chin in his hand, his bruising grip fending off her best attempts to bite him. “But you see, I have_ already _won. The castle is mine; your guards are dead, as is your husband, and I've no doubt the darkspawn will soon be sending your son to join his brat in the afterlife. This is about as definitive as victory can get.” He smiled that awful smile again. “And who said_ anything _about killing you?”_

 

 

 

Eleanor will not be broken. 

It's what Howe wants of her, so she refuses. She does not weep when his soldiers tear at her clothes. She does not bow her head in shame when they march her naked through their camp. She does not beg for mercy when they force themselves on her. She punches and kicks and scratches and bites; she slashed an attacker's throat open with his own knife once, and they've come to her unarmed ever since. It gives her a sick sort of satisfaction to know that for all their smirks and taunts her rapists are afraid of an old woman. 

Howe himself never touches her, which Eleanor finds a bit odd for someone so keen to have her for a whore. She is not sure whether this is because he considers the act of rape below his dignity, doesn't care to exert the effort to subdue her, or—as his wife liked to imply at the most wildly inappropriate of times—he simply does not have a taste for women. Familiar as she is with the arlessa's disposition, Eleanor more suspects the former. 

He never touches her, but he likes to watch. He wants to be there, she's realized, when the fight leaves her. To know that he's finally won. What he intends to do with her after that, she can only guess. 

One night, after what feels like ages of imprisonment but has probably been no more than a month or two, when Eleanor is marched into the middle of the camp in her shift to find Howe and his men-at-arms in higher spirits than usual, she wonders if he has finally grown bored of this game and intends to make a show of her execution. If so, she hopes he means to just get on with it rather than launching into one of those long-winded speeches of his; there's no need for torture, after all. 

“Dearest Eleanor,” he says, grinning a bit too widely as she's brought before him. “You've been quite a handful these past weeks. I daresay I'm beginning to believe you're not happy here.” He ignores Eleanor's glare and makes a gesture to one of his guards, who disappears into the crowd behind him. “I take full responsibility, of course. Hospitality never _was_ my strong suit. Luckily, I have recently come into possession of just the thing to cheer you up.” 

The minor commotion that began after the guard left grows louder, until he reemerges from the crowd, dragging— 

“Elissa!” Eleanor lunges, but her captors hold her fast. 

Elissa has been struggling against the guard, kicking and writhing and screaming into the gag in her mouth, to no avail—she's a slip of a thing, and that huge man has her arms firmly pinned. She stops struggling at the sound of her mother's voice, frightened green eyes seeking out Eleanor's. 

“Terribly difficult to find, this one; playing at being a peasant girl in Denerim. But not quite so crafty as she thought,” Howe says, petting her tangled blond hair in a mockery of affection. “Say hello to your mother, Elissa.” 

Elissa glares daggers at him. 

“Oh, of course. I completely forgot.” He removes the gag and makes a show of looking her over. “You know, it really is uncanny, Eleanor. She looks _exactly_ like you at her age.” He tries to cup her chin, swearing when she bites him. “And with precisely the same temperament, it would seem.” 

“You let her go,” Eleanor demands. “You let her go _now_!” 

Howe looks deeply affronted. “What, after all the trouble I went to? I had so hoped you would appreciate my gift.” He sighs. “Ah, well. I suppose I shall simply have to redistribute it.” 

Elissa blinks in confusion as the guards chuckle and leer. Eleanor's heart plummets. 

“No.” Her voice sounds frail even to her own ears. “No. Do what you will to me, but leave her be. Please,” she adds, desperately. 

Howe smirks. Then he turns on his heel and heads back toward his tent. “Try not to kill her,” he calls over his shoulder. 

Catching on at last, Elissa redoubles her futile efforts to escape as the soldiers draw in around her; Eleanor does the same with no greater success. The men holding her laugh cruelly. 

The bile rising in her throat, Eleanor tries to turn away, but they will not even allow her that, holding her firm and forcing her to watch as Elissa is stripped and groped and forced to the ground, screaming all the while. 

Screaming for them to stop. 

Screaming for mercy. 

Screaming for her mother. 

Eleanor sees a soldier, and then a dozen soldiers, and then a score of soldiers violate her daughter, two and three at a time, until her vision is too blurred by tears of hate and anguish to see any more. The army is still laughing and jeering and calling for the next turn when Eleanor's captors return her to the tarpaulin-covered mabari cage that serves as her quarters. 

Eons later the cage opens again, and Elissa is shoved inside. She falls to her knees, bruised, bloody, and weeping. 

Eleanor draws a tattered blanket around her daughter's shoulders and cradles her as bitter sobs wrack her slight frame. “Hush, darling,” she coos, stroking Elissa's hair. “Hush now. It's going to be alright. We're going to kill them all.”  

 

 

 

 

 

Eleanor doesn't fight the soldiers anymore. They seem to be under orders to leave Elissa be if she behaves, so she lays quiet and compliant beneath them. Howe takes this as surrender, and she doesn't correct him. Much as she itches for the opportunity to show him just how wrong he is, it will have to wait. 

Soon the army pulls up camp and leaves for Denerim. 

“You _have_ been busy, Rendon,” Eleanor observes as she and Elissa are escorted past the previous arl's horrid son to their own cell in the dungeon. “Tell me, did you murder Urien, too, or simply swoop in like a vulture when he happened to die?” 

Eleanor is whipped bloody for her cheek, and Elissa is turned over to the soldiers for the night. 

Their breakfast is brought by an elven girl with nut brown skin and huge dark eyes. She spits at Vaughan as she passes his cell and lets out a bark of mirthless laughter at the state she finds them in. 

“I always figured you shems treated your _own_ women a little better,” she says, returning a short while later with poultices and pennyroyal tea. 

“I fear that Howe and his fellows provide a rather worse example than most,” Eleanor says, wincing only slightly as Elissa spreads the astringent herbs on her torn flesh. 

“No worse than I'm used to,” the elf says darkly. 

The elf is the only person they see apart from Howe and his men. Though Howe calls her a servant, she is neither paid nor permitted to leave the estate, and is just as frequently subjected to his soldiers' appetites as they. For the first time in months, Eleanor and Elissa have found an ally beyond the bars. 

The three of them may finally have the means to tip the scales in their favor. 

“Have you ever considered breaking free, Kallian?” Eleanor asks one evening as the elf lingers, as she is wont to do, after delivering their supper of thin porridge. 

Kallian snorts. “Sure I have. But considering how well that worked out for me the last time—” she shoots a venomous glare toward Vaughan's cell “—giving it another go isn't exactly at the top of my to-do list. I'm not suicidal enough to try to fight my way past an entire army.” 

“You wouldn't be alone,” Eleanor reminds her. 

“Three people's odds aren't much better against a few hundred able-bodied soldiers,” Kallian points out. 

“Then we'll see to it that they _aren't_ able-bodied,” Elissa says. “You have access to the kitchen and storerooms. If you can find me what I need, I can make them sick enough to even the odds.” 

Kallian rakes her fingers through her hair. “It's not that simple. If they find me poking around, or catch you cooking up poison...” She sighs heavily. “Look, they've got my cousin locked up in here, too, alright?” 

“Even better. There will be four of us.” 

Kallian lets out a frustrated groan. “That's not the _point_. Maker knows I want to get out of here as much as you do, but if they figure out I'm involved in something like this, they'll hurt him.” She sighs again. “I'm sorry, but I just can't risk it. I won't.” 

Eleanor understands, and does not press her further. 

There is no more talk of escape until Kallian bursts in some weeks later, covered in livid bruises with a badly split lip, her pretty face streaked with blood and tears. 

“They killed him!” she sobs. “Soris—my cousin—I fought back because they were hurting me and they _killed him_!” She sinks to her knees before the bars. Eleanor tries to pat her shoulder soothingly, but she jerks away, turning her gaze to Elissa. “What do you need for your poison?” she snarls. 

Elissa makes a list with a bit of charcoal on a scrap of fabric torn from her shift, and they begin to hash out a plan. When the poison is ready, Kallian will see it into the evening stew and make off with a set of lockpicks; Elissa will unlock the cell, and they will break into the armory. 

“And then?” Kallian asks. 

“We kill them all,” Eleanor says. 

“All of them?” 

Eleanor nods. 

Kallian grins, fresh blood trickling from her lip. “I like that.”  

 

  

 

  

The poison is ready a week later. 

Kallian smuggles the vial into the kitchen, returning shortly with lockpicks and a large carving knife Eleanor is amazed she managed to conceal. “It seems the arl's men have eaten something they shouldn't,” she says almost gleefully as Elissa makes short work of the lock. 

Vaughan's pleas, requests, and demands to be released as well are dutifully ignored as the three of them slip into the corridor. 

Kallian leads them down a series of turns until they reach a heavy wooden door. “This isn't the way to the armory,” she whispers, just as Eleanor has opened her mouth to ask precisely that. “I've got a little present for you first.” Holding a finger to her lips, Kallian gingerly opens the door. 

It's a bedroom, Eleanor realizes once her eyes have adjusted to the darkness. And in the bed... 

“Howe,” she hisses. 

Kallian grins. “I thought you might like to do the honors,” she says, pressing the knife into Eleanor's hand. A bloodthirsty giddiness that takes her by surprise rises up inside Eleanor as she tightens her fist around the blade and pads over to the edge of the bed. 

As she looks down at the sleeping form of the man who turned her world upside down, a voice in her head that sounds remarkably like Bryce tells her that this isn't what she wants to do. It isn't right, isn't honorable to kill a man in his sleep. The Eleanor he knew would never dream of it. 

But Bryce is dead because of this sleeping man, and in so many ways the Eleanor he knew died with him. 

She raises the knife. 

As if on cue, Howe opens his eyes. 

“Goodbye, Rendon,” she says, and plunges the knife into his chest. 

There is a lone guard outside the armory. Eleanor drives the knife into his throat and Kallian takes his keys. Inside, they hastily equip themselves with the least ill-fitting armor they can find and as many weapons as they can carry. 

And then they kill them all. 

The soldiers are ill, clumsy and delirious from Elissa's poison, and they go down easily. 

Once again, Eleanor loses track of time, of how many soldiers she puts to the sword. She is aware of Kallian off to her right, daggers flashing almost too fast for the eye to see. She sees men drop with arrows in their hearts, eyes, and throats: Elissa's work. 

When she finally comes back to herself, none but the three of them are left standing, and the walls and floor are slick with blood. 

They steal out the back just as the sky begins to lighten. By some miracle—or because Howe was simply that unpopular—no one has alerted the Denerim guard, and no one pays them any mind as they flee the city on stolen horses. 

They do not dismount until the sun begins to set once more. They have not been followed. 

“Where will you go now, Kallian?” Eleanor asks as they wash themselves in a nearby stream. “Back to your family?” 

Kallian shakes her head. “They're still in the Denerim alienage, and once news gets out about what we've done, that's the first place the guards will look for me.” She sighs sadly. “The best thing I can do for my family now is to let them be able to honestly say that they haven't seen me.” 

Eleanor frowns. “You could stay with us, you know.” 

“As a servant?” 

“No.” 

Kallian smiles. “I appreciate the offer, but no thanks. Don't get me wrong, you two are alright, but hanging out with a pair of shems all the time? You can't imagine what it would do to my reputation.” 

Eleanor laughs. She had forgotten how good it felt to laugh. 

“The Dalish, then,” Elissa says. “I heard rumors in Denerim of a clan setting up camp in the Brecilian Forest. Do you suppose they'd accept you?” 

“It's worth a shot,” Kallian says. 

After they've gotten themselves respectably clean, Kallian bids them farewell and rides off toward the forest, and for a few moments they just watch as she disappears into the twilight. 

Eleanor turns to her daughter. She hugs her tightly and kisses her forehead. 

“Come along, darling. Let's go find your brother.”

 


End file.
